Lidar, which may be referred to as light radar or laser array light detection and ranging, refers generally to transmitting light at a target and receiving and processing a resulting reflection. An array of lasers or other illuminators (e.g, light emitting diode (LED) may be used in an array lidar system to obtain reflections from a wider field of view than is possible with a single illuminator. Typically, an array lidar system may be used to obtain a three-dimensional image of the field of view by operating all the illuminators in turn. However, other detection schemes may be useful in some situations. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide scanning patterns for the array lidar system.